


This is just a journey, drop your worries

by EponineTheStrange (gallifreyandglowclouds)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, basically i can't write essays so here have some fanfiction, i don't even know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 18:51:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyandglowclouds/pseuds/EponineTheStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry pines. Louis figures his life out. Gemma and Niall totally ship it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is just a journey, drop your worries

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is my first fanfic so my 1D characterisation/tour date location might not be 100 percent accurate. Be nice.

There is literally no precedent for things being this fucked up.

Literally, none at all.

It’s in a hotel room in Sydney - and Harry has no fucking clue what time it is, because he’s still not really over the jet lag, which makes no sense because they’ve been in Australia for weeks, and they’ve got dates all across the South Pacific until time immemorial, and for the first time in a long time he wishes he was home. Holmes Chapel feels like an entirely different dimension from where he is right now, and he can’t picture home clearly anymore, or a home that’s not a tour bus or an airplane or yet another hotel room surrounded by screaming fans.

He loves being onstage, loves the performing and the singing, but it’s all the other stuff - the paparazzi, the crazy fans, the sheer amount of drama - that he can’t really handle.

And that doesn’t get him started on Louis.

He’s in love with him, and Harry’s just kind of over that now. It’s not something he necessarily needs to struggle with anymore, and yet, it kind of is, because the amount of time he spends straight-up pining over Louis like a fourteen year old girl with one of those terrible teen magazines.

He sits on his bed, looking through Twitter because he can’t sleep for a while after shows when the adrenaline is pumping and his heart is still thumping in his ears, so computer. Yay, computer. Louis might have come up and suggested that they watch a movie or go out or something more fun than laptop-gazing, but Eleanor’s here, and that’s where Louis’ attentions are going to be for the time being.

He tries to pretend that he doesn’t feel jealous at all, because he’s got no right to. Louis doesn’t belong to him, and he probably never will. They’ve talked a little bit about this on a long as fuck flight from Heathrow to Sydney - not about them, specifically, because that’s a subject that they should not broach at all ever because that would make things supremely awkward - more about how Louis isn’t one hundred percent sure that he’s totally straight, and then Harry had nodded and agreed.

Louis had sighed. “It’s not easy, you know? Because it’s not like we could really be open about it.”

Harry had nodded, and he knew then that Louis wasn’t talking about the two of them being together, but still. The mind races.

Things with Louis are beyond weird, and he won’t lie - it’s got a lot to do with the whole gay rumours thing, and as much as they try to ignore it, it’s in his face whenever he opens up Twitter. He kind of doesn’t mind it, because he knows that it’s not going to happen any time soon or ever, but it puts Louis off and thus, they have been pretty distant from each other. It hurts him, plain and simple.

And so he thinks about Louis and Eleanor, and how he’d strongly prefer to be the one that Louis tweets adorable stuff to and gets to walk around with holding hands and Starbucks, and then he just slams his laptop shut, places it beside the bed, and tries his best to fall asleep and just shut off his whole brain because that’s really what needs to happen right now.

(It doesn’t work, but he reckons that’s because he tries to fall asleep both in his clothes and with all the lights on in his hotel room on. He does rectify those two things, and yet, he still can’t fall asleep.)

* * *

Having the girlfriends on tour makes things… different? Everyone seems to clean up their act a little bit. Usually on their days off they’re just running around and doing stupid stuff and just letting loose a little bit for once, but then Sophia or Perrie or Eleanor shows up and everyone gets their act together in a way that makes things incredibly boring.

They do actually go out to a nightclub on their night off in Melbourne, but when Harry checks his phone to see if Louis and Eleanor are going to join, he gets the following response:

Sorry m8, el’s tired. Staying in 2nite.

Harry groans and shoves his phone back in his pocket.

“You know,” Niall says, when he comes and sits down at the table where Harry is sulking with a couple of drinks, “you always act like a sad puppy whenever Louis isn’t here.”

Harry looks up from his phone. “What?”

“You’re supposed to be the fun one,” Niall says. “You know, going out and making half of the global female population your ex-girlfriend by next year.”

“My wingman’s gone,” Harry says with a shrug. He clinks glasses with Niall, and then downs the shot. “Can’t go meet people without my wingman.”

“You need a new wingman,” Niall says.

Harry shrugs. “Maybe I don’t need a wingman.”

Niall cackles.

“Shut up.”

“I think your problem is is that you’d rather be doing your wingman,” Niall says casually, as though he were commenting on how bloody hot Australia is in October.

“What - what, no - how did you -” Harry sputters, and then realises that he’s making the whole situation worse by aggressively denying it. “Fuck.”

“Anyone with eyes could figure it out, Hazza,” Niall says. “Believe me. Everyone knows.”  

“Christ.”

“It’s okay,” Niall says, clapping one hand on his shoulder. “I mean, management would have a conniption if you and Louis were ever together, but hey, nothing lasts forever - the band included. Presumably our lives get a lot less watched after that point.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Harry says, sharply. (He’s not really thought about what’s going to happen when everyone politely up and goes their separate ways. He’d rather not.) “And trust me, that’s not the biggest thing stopping me from doing Louis.”

“Hmm.” Niall raises his eyebrows, and Harry gets a definite vibe that Niall knows something he doesn’t.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Niall says, and shakes his head. “I’m going to go stop Zayn from doing anything else that might compromise his engagement. Want to come with?”

Harry looks over to the bar, and sure enough, there’s a literal flock of girls in shiny tops surrounding Zayn, who looks a little flustered.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “Sounds good.”

* * *

He really, really wants to hate Eleanor. It’s unfortunate for him that he just can’t. She’s not a bad person, really - well, she’s a little high-strung, but that’s not for him to judge - she just happens to be with the person that he wants to be with, and that’s not her fault. It doesn’t stop him from shooting little eye-daggers at her on the flight from Sydney to Tokyo while she and Louis watch a movie, snuggled up under the blanket a few rows in front of Harry for the first hour of the flight.

He falls asleep after that, with thoughts of invasive Australian television interviewers with their stupid photoshopped photos.

* * *

Eleanor flies home from Narita, and maybe Harry’s got his optimistic goggles on, but the goodbye is awkward. Like, really awkward. Like, weirdest hug ever and then an awkward nod and then she’s off through another gate for her flight to Heathrow.

Louis comes over and joins the rest of them, and they all pretend that what they just saw didn’t happen.

Harry leans over to Louis and whispers, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, but then does that stupid thing where he looks away from Harry and pulls the slightest of grimaces which indicates to Harry that he’s full of shit he could start growing mushrooms right then and there. He’d usually call Louis on it, but he just sort of feels that the moment’s not really right.

“Cool.” He has just enough time to put on a smile before they go to face the throngs of screaming fans who await them past the baggage hall.  

When Harry looks over at Louis again, he’s got a bright smile on and he’s waving at the fans. Oh well.

* * *

Of all the places that the band’s even been, Harry finds Japan to be the weirdest, generally. It’s just the lights and the writing and the fact that Tokyo just seems to go on for ever and ever.

Their first night there, everyone is theoretically too jet-lagged to do anything. Theoretically. Harry’s actually fully ready to go to bed, and then he gets a text from Louis.

fancy a walk?

He can’t say no to Louis, and he predicts that this will lead to problems later in life, but he still pulls on a shirt and some jeans and goes to meet him in the lobby.

He’s there, bouncing on his heels in the hotel lobby, which at ten o’clock is mercifully devoid of people (though the receptionist is giving them funny looks).

“Haz,” he says quickly. “Come on, let’s go.”

“You’re awfully bouncy for someone who’s gone through like, four time zones in a day,” Harry says as they walk out the door and the November air rushes around them.

“Can’t sit still for some reason,” Louis says with a shrug.

“Could you ever?”

He gets a good solid elbow to the ribs for that one.

Tokyo is still bracing and bright and a little bit confusing, and Harry’s a bit nervous about getting lost and then not being able to find his (their? nah, if they got lost he’d probably ditch Louis and send him off in the wrong direction, just for kicks and for the wonderful stories that would ensue) but Louis seems to have a certain route in mind as they wind through city streets, past convenience stores Louis’ hands remain firmly shoved in his jacket pockets and his eyes dart around to take in their surroundings, and he seems to look everywhere except at Harry. Fair, because if he spent too much time looking to the side he’d probably walk in to a post or something, which would be hilarious but then Harry would probably go all mother bear on him in public and that might be a little embarrassing.

“Everything good?” Harry asks.

“Eh,” Louis says, “it’s as okay as it ever is.”

Non-answer. Great.

“Good,” Harry says, then purses his lips.

“There’s a Starbucks over there,” Louis says. “Let’s get some tea. I need tea.”

If Harry were sensible he’d suggest that they don’t go to a fucking Starbucks because Starbucks is everywhere, and it might make more sense to do something uniquely Japanese because that’s where they are, but five minutes later they’re sitting at a little table in the window of a Starbucks, and Louis signs an autograph for the barista, which scores them some free coffee cake.

So then they sip tea and stare at the table in silence, and it’s no less awkward and horrible than it was when they were walking around outside.

“How about that interview, eh?” Louis says, raising his eyebrows.

Harry can’t place the exact interview because hey, they do so many goddamn interview and then realises that it’s the one where the stupid interviewer did the world’s worst Google images search, and then while Harry scrambled to find an answer to her questions that wouldn’t earn him a lecture from management, Liam made awkward jokes, and then he finally came up with the photoshop answer. They were photoshopped. Well, one of them was a creative camera angle and the fact that he and Louis are shitty at not looking like they’re making out when they whisper onstage. They just shouldn’t whisper onstage anymore, because people will start to get ideas. (The right idea, Harry thinks with a smirk.)

“What can I say,” Harry says nonchalantly, “we have talented fans.”

“Guess so.”

“How did El take it?” Shit. He should not have asked that question because Louis’ face just falls and he feels like kicking himself.

“ ‘Bout as well as you’d expect,” Louis mumbles. “I mean, she hates the fans already, and then this - it’s tough.”

“Don’t blame her,” Harry mumbles.

“No.”

“You know Haz,” he says, looking straight down at his tea and then back up at Harry, “I don’t want this to change things between us.”

That ship has already sailed, Harry thinks. “Yeah, I don’t want that either -”

“Because I feel like I’m stuck,” Louis says, “because I think I want to make things work with El but she’s worried that there’s something more - more than friends between us, you know? And every time I try to calm her down but I don’t know if I want to keep reassuring her, you know? Because we both know that nothing’s happening and nothing’s going to happen, but it’s hard when there’s so much speculation going around, and I’m starting to wonder whether it’s worth it, or whether she’s just not the right person?”

Louis is looking at him like he needs an answer right then, but Harry’s horrifically jet-lagged brain is still stuck on the ‘nothing’s happened and nothing’s going to happen’, and he needs to stop fixating in three seconds or he’s going to be in serious trouble.

“I guess you guys just have to talk about it,” Harry says. “Only way to sort it out, I reckon.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” Louis says.   
“It’ll work out,” Harry says, though the words ring hollow for him because he has no idea what the fuck is going on or what he’s going to do about anything ever.

Louis nods and smiles, but there’s something hiding that Harry can’t quite read and it annoys him.

They finish their tea and go back to the hotel. As soon as he slams his door shut behind him, Harry faceplants into his pillow and wonders who he pissed off to land him this place.

* * *

Japan is better than Australia, but going home is best of all, because he sits beside Louis on the plane ride back, and they bug Liam and Zayn, who have the unfortunate duty of sitting in front of them on the airplane.  
“I swear I am going to murder you both in your sleep if you won’t stop kicking the back of the seat,” Liam groans.

Louis grins at Harry, and Harry pretends that it doesn’t make something in his stomach flip over.

“Better lock the door when we’re travelling on the bus next time, eh Hazza?”

“Absolutely.”

The rest of November and well into December is flogging the shit out of the new album, and Harry loses track of all the talk shows and signings and concerts that they’ve been doing, and it all seems to blur and he only feels like he properly wakes up when he drags his suitcase through the door back at home (and proper home too) and Gemma runs up and hugs him so hard that he swears she almost knocks him over.

“Mum bought us matching ugly sweaters,” she says, and the white, red, and green reindeer sweater she’s wearing is absolutely awful.

“Oh god,” Harry says, but she’s holding one out for him, and then Mum comes dashing down the hallway and hugs him again, and Harry realises that he’s probably going to have fractured ribs by the end of the holidays, but being home is fantastic.

 

He and Gemma go and visit Dad on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas day all of his mum’s family (and then his step-dad’s family) come and land upon the house. It’s not a huge place, so it feels like there are people everywhere, and the whole house feels warm and wonderful. His aunts keep on feeding him figgy pudding and when he feels like he’s going to explode, he quietly takes his leave from the dining room, tiptoes up the stairs, and slips into his room. Mum’s mandated that he leave his phone upstairs in his room, so he takes the opportunity to check it. He’s got texts from Liam and Niall, wishing him a merry Christmas… and a missed call from Louis.

Huh.

He calls him back. Louis picks up after two rings.

“Tommo,” Harry says, “sorry I missed your call. Mum makes us put our phones away when the family’s coming around.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Louis says. “Just wanted to call and say merry Christmas.”

“Yeah, thanks, you too,” he says. “Done anything crazy today?”

“Nah, just hung around with mum. The girls were here yesterday but they’ve all gone to be with their dad today. It’s pretty quiet.”

“I’d kill for some of that right now,” Harry says. “It feels like we’ve got a small army downstairs.”

There’s a pause, punctuated by static and Louis breathing quietly over the air.

“Are you going to see Eleanor?” Harry asks, and he realises that it’s kind of odd that the two of them aren’t together on Christmas.

“No, Haz,” Louis says, and then sighs audibly, “El and I, well, we aren’t together anymore.”

“Shit,” Harry says, and he swears to god his heart stops for a moment. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Louis says. “It was going that way anyways.”

“Bad time of year,” Harry says.

He obviously can’t see Louis but he kind of instinctively knows that he’s shrugging.

“Hey,” Harry says, heart in his throat, “If Doncaster starts getting you down, you’ve always got a place to crash here.”

Louis laughs. “Impossible. But I’ll keep it in mind. See you in couple weeks, Haz.”

“Absolutely, Tommo.”

He hangs up.

Well, this is interesting. He goes back downstairs in something of a dream state.

* * *

He eats a lot of leftover turkey and stuffing and generally lazes around the house like a human-sized sloth over Christmas. Gemma has to go back to London right after New Years, so Mum makes them all stay in and watch the ridiculous stuff on BBC One. Mum has also worked out that if they go out and stand in the garden, they can see the fireworks that are being set off down the road, so there’s apparently no actual need to go anywhere.

Some of Robin’s friends come to visit, and they all sit in the living room and reminisce on how 2013 was. Harry kind of can’t believe that it’s all over already - every year seems to zip by faster and faster, and he thinks about that for a while and suddenly he’s having a miniature existential crisis while sitting with a bunch of family friends and his sister.

“Plus,” Gemma says with a laugh, “the world was supposed to end more than a year ago.”

She notices that he isn’t paying attention, and elbows him in the side.

“Ouch!”

“Also,” she says, as the adults drift off into a conversation of their own, “I think your phone is buzzing.”

Somehow he hasn’t noticed this, but his phone is vibrating and ringing muffledly in his back pocket.

“Is it your boyfriend?” Gemma asks as he pulls out his phone and looks at the screen. Oh.  

“Louis is not my boyfriend,” he mutters, standing up from the couch.

“You want him to be,” Gemma calls after him as he leaves the room. He’d flip her off but mum’s right there.

“Hey,” he says, picking up his phone. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Louis says. “All good.”

There’s a loud noise that blocks out the last bit of the conversation.   
“Are you at a train station?” Harry says.

“I actually just arrived in Holmes Chapel.”

Harry actually drops his phone in surprise.

“Sorry,” Harry says, once he’s retrieved his phone from the floor and reassured himself that this is not a goddamn drill, “do you want me to come pick you up?”

“I can grab a cab if it’s too much trouble -”

“No, no,” Harry says, “I’ll just borrow Mum’s car, and I’ll be there in a tick, okay? You can stay here tonight, and we’ve got lots of food and tea and stuff.”

“Right, I’ll see you in a little while.”

“Mum,” Harry says, sticking his head into the living room, “can I borrow the car? Louis is here.”

“Oh!” she says. “I had no idea he was coming.”

“Me neither,” Harry says. “It’s a lovely surprise.”

“Don’t do anything too foolish,” she says, but he’s already got his coat on and one foot out the door.

* * *

Louis is waiting outside the train station in the one little bit of shelter, because the weather is predictably horrible (no snow, which kind of sucks, but oh well).

On the way over, he grips the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles go white, but it’s only to stop his hands shaking so hard that he doesn’t get in some kind of horrible accident. He leaps out of the car and dashes through the rain and hugs Louis like he’s going to squeeze all the life out of him.

“Jesushaz,” Louis exhales. “I’m happy to see you too.”

“I didn’t actually think you’d come all the way here,” Harry says.

“You offered.”

“I did offer.”

Louis is smiling, properly smiling, and Harry can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen Louis do that lately. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s head back to mine.”

“I’m not really doing anything fun,” Harry says, as he starts the car. “Some of Robin and mum’s friends are over, and Gemma’s at home as well. There will be fireworks at midnight and we can see them from the back garden.”

“Sounds perfect,” Louis says quietly.

“You think you’ll stay for a while?” Harry asks.

“I’ve got enough clothes for a few days,” Louis says. “Then I’ll just start stealing yours.”

“You’d have to shrink all of mine to make them fit, stupid,” he says.

“I might,” he says. “Even that horrible Christmas sweater.”

“How did you - right, Gemma did tweet that photo,” Harry says, and then reminds himself to play some kind of moderately mean prank on her later.

“You guys are too cute.”

“I’m still waiting for the Tomlinson crew in matching clothes,” Harry says.

“Someday, my friend. Someday.”

* * *

Mum loves Louis, so she forcefully hugs him when the two of them get back from the train station (that seems to be a running theme for the holidays). Harry takes his bag upstairs and puts it in the guest bedroom, and then comes back down and plants himself back on the couch. Louis, who sort of fell into a conversation with one of Robin’s friends about football, comes and sits down beside Harry on the couch, close enough that their legs just barely touch. It’s a dare, Harry thinks, and realises that Louis is practically telling him to move a little bit closer.

So much for nothing’s going to happen, eh?

He does, and then Louis doesn’t move again but he’s warm pressing into Harry’s side and they sit there, awkwardly glued like that until everyone starts to move outside.

“If you don’t want to go back out in the rain,” Harry says to Louis, “my room looks out over the back garden.” (He has no ulterior motive for this. Okay, yes, he totally does.)

Louis raises an eyebrow at him, but does follow Harry up the stairs.

“Five minutes ‘til 2014,” Louis says, sitting on the window-ledge. “What are your plans for next year?”

Harry shrugs, putting his beer down on his bedside table. “Fall in love. Have an adventure. Solve world hunger.”

“Get less sarcastic?”

“Never,” Harry says. “I don’t know. Survive. Turn twenty. Try and do a couple of fun things. You?”

Louis shakes his head and shrugs, then looks out the window. Harry checks his watch. “Four minutes.”

“You know why I came down here, Haz?”

“You just missed me too much,” Harry says in a singsong voice, entirely joking, but then he looks at Louis’ face and realises that he isn’t. Oh.

“Kinda, yeah,” Louis says. “I just sort of realised that home is great, but I’d kind of rather be with someone I love, because that’s really home, you know?”

Harry’s probably shaved a solid decade off of his life tonight, and it’s all Louis’ fault. He can’t imagine the look on his face right now, but Louis looks uncharacteristically shy and and a little embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, “I’d been practicing that on the train and trust me, it sounded a lot better and more poetic in my head.”

“That was pretty fucking poetic,” Harry says, breathless.

“You too?”

Harry nods, and suddenly it’s the most obvious thing to do in the world to stand so close to Louis that he can smell his stupid cologne and put his arms around his shoulders, and then Louis is looking up at him, and the people outside start counting down so loud that he can hear them through the window.

“60… 59… 58… 57… 56…”

“You know,” Harry whispers, “you’re supposed to have someone to kiss when that clock gets to zero.”

“I might have thought about that,” Louis says.

Oh God.

“20… 19… 18…”

Harry’s pretty sure his heart rate is well over 100 and he’s going to kiss Louis and then he might die, but at least he’ll die happier than he’s ever been.

“10… 9… 8…”

Louis is leaning in…

“3… 2… 1… Happy New Year!”

(He misses that last part, because he’s too busy having his brain short-circuited by the fact that Louis’ lips are softer than he could have ever imagined.)

They break apart when the people outside are on their second verse of Auld Lang Syne. Louis rests his head on Harry’s shoulder, and they watch the fireworks explode into brilliant colours.

(Harry thinks that this year’s going to be the best one in a while.)


End file.
